Alan Sillitoe is one of the original "Angry Young Men" of British letters
who burst onto the literary scene in the late 50s & early 60s with
tough slangy stories set amongst the working class poor and dole recipients
of a Britain in obvious decline. The best known of these stories
is The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, narrated by a juvenile
delinquent who has been sent to Borstal (Reform School). There the
governor of the institution hopes to make an honest lad of him and to have
him win the Borstal cross country race. But the boy has a different
understanding of honesty than the governor and has no intention of letting
the governor bask in his own reflected glory.

Another honest thought that comes is that I could
swing left at the next hedge of the field, and
under its cover beat my slow retreat away from the
sports ground winning post. I could do three
or six or a dozen miles across the turf like this
and cut a few main roads behind me so's they'd never
know which one I'd taken; and maybe on the last
one when it gets dark I could thumb a lorry lift and
get a free ride north with somebody who might not
give me away. But no, I said I wasn't that daft
didn't I? I won't pull out with only six months
left, and besides there's nothing I want to dodge and
run away from; I only want a bit of my own back
on the In-Laws and Potbellies by letting them sit up
there on their big posh seats and watch me lose
this race, though as sure as God made me I know
when I do lose I'll get the dirtiest crap
and kitchen jobs in the months to go before my time is up. I
won't be worth a threpp'ny-bit to anybody here,
which will be all the thanks I get for being honest in
the only way I know. For when the governor
told me to be honest it was meant to be in his way not
mine, an if I kept on being honest in the way he
wanted and won my race for him he'd see I got the
cushiest six months still left to run; but in my
own way, well, it's not allowed, and if I find a way of
doing it such as I've got now and then I'll get
what-for in every mean trick he can set his mind to.
And if you look at it in my way, who can blame him?
For this is war--and ain't I said so?--and when
I hit him in the only place he knows he'll be sure
to get his own back on me for not collaring that cup
when his heart's been set for ages on seeing himself
standing up at the end of the afternoon to clap me
on the back as I take the cup from Lord Earwig or
some such chinless wonder with a name like that.
And so I'll hit him where it hurts a lot, and he'll
do all he can to get his own back, tit for tat, though
I'll enjoy it most because I planned it longer.
I don't know why I think these thoughts are better than
any I've ever had, but I do, and I don't care why.
I suppose it took me a long time to get going on all
this because I've had no time and peace in all my
bandit life, and now my thoughts are coming pat
and the only trouble is I often can't stop, even
when my brain feels as if it's got cramp, frostbite and
creeping paralysis all rolled into one and I have
to give it a rest by slap-dashing down through the
brambles of the sunken lane. And all this
is another uppercut I'm getting in first at people like the
governor, to show how--if I can--his races are never
won even though some bloke always comes
unknowingly in first, how in the end the governor
is going to be doomed while blokes like me will
take the pickings of his roasted bones and dance
like maniacs around his Borstal ruins. And so this
story's like the race and once again I won't bring
off a winner to suit the governor; no, I'm being
honest like he told me to, without him knowing what
he means, though I don't suppose he'll ever
come in with a story of his own, even if he reads
this one of mine and knows who I'm talking about.

Now, at first glance, this seems much like the rebellion against authority
that we've traced through stories like The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)(Mark Twain 1835-1910)
(Grade:
A-), One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)(Ken Kesey 1935-)(Grade:
A+), etc., but the differences are more instructive than the similarities.
First of all, the authority here is legitimate and the youngster is a genuine
evil doer. The authority is easily avoidable if he merely obeys the
minimal rules that every society requires, but he makes no bones about
having been a criminal nor of his intention to continue a life of crime
when he gets out. Since we're the honest citizens that hoodlums of
his ilk prey upon, we don't really ever want him to get out.

Second, he defines himself wholly in terms of the rebellion. He
has no personal end that he's pursuing--witness his decision not to escape,
though it would be easy. Unlike Huck or RP McMurphy, freedom is not
his goal; instead, he merely wants to lash out at his perceived oppressor.
In this sense the story resembles The Confessions of Nat Turner
(read Orrin's review),
wherein a group of slaves breaks free, but instead of fleeing to freedom,
settles instead for wreaking retribution on their owners. The novel,
based on actual events, ends with the slaves dead. Similarly, the
Long Distance Runner may still be alive at the end of his tale, but we
are pretty certain that he will be back in jail posthaste, so what has
he really won? More importantly, why should we care? Good riddance...

This one is recommended almost solely for the strength of the narrative
and the fairly unique voice in which it is delivered.